


The Day After Last Night

by Anonymous



Series: Alone in the Dark [2]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Nightmares, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 11:06:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6515947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crutchie and Katherine talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Day After Last Night

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Newsies. No profit is being made from writing this.

Dear Aunt Dottie,

My husband is a loving father and a good provider, but since we married his table manners have become abominable. He chews with his mouth open and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. I know was not raised this way. Any time I confront him about it he snaps "you're not my mother." It's gotten so bad that I'm embarrassed to be seen with him. What can I do?

Sincerely,

Wife of Slob.

Katherine Plumber Pulitzer frowned at the letter. It was mocking her. 

She had been "promoted" the Aunt Dottie column less than a week ago. So far she hated it. First there was the secrecy issue: As far as the readers of the Sun knew, Aunt Dottie was a wise old woman of sixty. Her editors were determined to keep it that way, if word leaked that 19 year old Katherine was writing the column, she would be fired.

Then there were the letters. Her boss insisted on selecting which letters she answered. "At least for the first few months," he had said, "we don't want to repeat a recent subject." Maybe it was his taste, but it seemed that all of Aunt Dottie's readers had been dropped on their heads as children: women wanting to know if they should buy expensive new hats when money was tight, men wanting to know why their girl friends dumped them after bad dates, and more women wanting to know why their boyfriends would not propose. No wonder Fred, the previous Aunt Dottie, had quit in spite of the good pay that came with the job.

Katherine sighed and turned her attention back to the present letter. Her first two columns had been accepted without comment, but apparently "All men are jerks," was not something that Aunt Dottie would say. She been sent home with the letter, and told to come back on Monday with something better.

"All men even the good ones are jerks sometimes," she wrote. Somehow, she doubted that would be accepted either. There was a knock at her door. Maybe Jack had come to apologize. 

She open the door to see Crutchie. 

"We needs to talk," he said, sounding exhausted. 

\---------------------

Crutchie sat fidgeting nervously on Katherine's couch, when Katherine returned with the tea-tray. 

"You didn't need to do that," Crutchie said. 

"Nonsense," Katherine said, pouring two cups. The boy was far too pale and skinny, no wonder Jack worried about him so much. She asked if he wanted cream and sugar. He blushed. 

"I've never had tea before," he said. 

Katherine added milk and sugar, she handed him the cup. He took a sip, and made a sound that she took to be approval. She handed him a cookie before picking up her own cup. 

"Now," she said, "What did you want to talk about?"

"Did you and Jack have a fight last night?" Crutchie asked. 

Katherine gave him an appraising eye, and a nod. She was not about to share the dirty details of their date with a fifteen year old, but then again he knew Jack better than anyone. 

"Tell me something has Jack. . ." Now she was blushing. "How many girls has Jack . . . been with?" When they met Jack had claimed to have had lots of girls, and yet. . .

"I don't know," Crutchie said. "He went on a few dates, but you's the only one he's seen more than twice." 

That did not tell her what she wanted to know. She had been dropping Jack subtle hints that she wanted move beyond handholding and stolen kisses for over a month. Last night she had decided to try not so subtle. Things gone down hill form there.

"He's talking about ending it with you," Crutchie blurted out. 

It was like a slap in the face. It stung even more than Jack's harsh words from last night. 

"Did he say why?" Katherine asked. Fat chance of that, she thought. 

Crutchie fidgeted. 

"No," he said, "he won't talk about it." He shifted again, clearly uncomfortable. 

"But you know something?" She asked. He nodded, and set the tea cup down on her coffee table. 

"I think you deserve to know," Crutchie said, "and I can't let him wreck things with you, not when you's been so good for him." 

"But telling you don't feel right neither," Crutchie said. "What I know ain't mine to share, like I's violatin' his trust." 

"I wouldn't want you to do that," Katherine said. "If Jack told you something in confidence. . ."

"But that's just it, he ain't told me nothin'" Crutchie said. "I just sorta knows. We ain't never talked about it."

"It?" Katherine asked. 

"The Refuge, Snyder," Crutchie said, "He won't talk and. . ." The words seem to die in his mouth. 

"And you need someone to talk to." Katherine finished. 

That seemed to ease his burden to the point where he almost smiled. "I can tell you what happened to me that's ain't confidential," he said. 

"Snyder, when he first got me in the Refuge, he thought I was faking," Crutchie said. He paused as if searching for what to say next. 

"That doesn't justify him hitting you," Katherine said. 

"It makes more sense if you know that part first, I think," Crutchie said. "The first time it happened I didn't think nothin' of it. He brushed up against me while he was leadin' me to his office. It felt like an accident. 

"He started askin' all these questions: What was my real name? Where were my parents? How old was I?

"Then he said he had to make sure I didn't have no weapons. He felt me all over. He really liked that. He told me to get undressed."

"Oh God," Katherine said feeling sick to her stomach.

"He said it was so he could delouse me," Crutchie said. "I said I didn't have no lice. I kinda tried to resist him, but he got my pants down. He stopped when seen my leg. It's really disgustin' to look at."

"Oh Crutchie," Katherine said, she felt tears prickling in her eyes. She was unsure of what to say.

"He left me alone after that. . . I mean he kept askin' questions, but he kept his hands to himself," Crutchie said. 

There was a long pause. Katherine wanted to hug him, but settled for gently taking his hand. 

"Anyway some of the other boys got it a lot worse," Crutchie said, as though that some how made it better.

"Crutchie, no one should ever have to go through. . ." She said. 

"I didn't," Crutchie said, "Not really, anyway. I'm alright." Alright wasn't a word Katherine would use to describe any of this. She searched for something comforting to say.

"Still, it must have been frightening," she said, trying to let him know it was okay to be scared.

"You ain't listenin' to me," Crutchie said sound a little expatriated. "I ain't the one who made a career outa makin' Snyder mad. I ain't the one who was alone with him in a cell for hours. I ain't the one havin' nightmares, and I ain't the one pickin' fights."

Slowly, a more horrifying thought filled her brain. 

"Jack," she whispered.

"Well, now you know as much as I know," Crutchie said. 

What had that monster done to him? And last she had. . .

She looked at Crutchie, and asked the question that was hanging over both of them: "What are we going to do?"


End file.
